In A Woman for Life, artist Benjamin Füglister explores the mystery, loneliness, and predatory nature of women looking for someone to be with through the scam e-mail. In the past 20 years, and despite the technological advances we have, e-mails from random accounts would find themselves in various inboxes like that of Füglister’s, seeking love and companionship.
In these letters, a pattern is followed. A simple introduction, the pangs of solitude, and the desire to meet the receiver, along with a provocative photo. Vis-a-vis the proliferation of dating apps, the premise isn’t so far away. There could be someone out there waiting for us, randomly reaching out through the vastness of the Internet.
The project pieces together the anonymity of these e-mails. Fuglister resorted to reverse image search via Google and Yandex. This leads him to a dating site or a modeling agency, where he finds real women perhaps unaware that their photos are used to catfish unwitting hearts. Some searches have to lead to defunct websites and forums warning people of the deception in these e-mails.
Playing with the idea of finding love out of serendipity, Füglister prints out these photographs and encases them in kitschy frames. He asks in ironic melancholy: What if?
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Untitled, from A Woman for Life (working title), 2020
Untitled, from A Woman for Life (working title), 2020
Untitled, from A Woman for Life (working title), 2020
Untitled, from A Woman for Life (working title), 2020
Untitled, from A Woman for Life (working title), 2020
Untitled, from A Woman for Life (working title), 2020
Untitled, from A Woman for Life (working title), 2020